Source: Lionheart Industries

Branch: Lionheart Administration Division

Subbranch: Public Relations Department

Author: Kara Taylor

Date: August 14th, 2571

System: Sol System

Planet: Earth

City/Region: New York

THE HAND THAT WOULD NOT BOW

“Citizens of the UEG. Colonists of the Inner Colonies both Inner and Outer Territories. Partners, critics, soldiers, skeptics, and everyone in between, good evening.

This is Kara Taylor, CEO of Lionheart Industries.

You have all heard the recent address from General Abigail Smith of the UNSC. You have heard her speak about talks, about coordination, about shared understandings. You have heard her use my name, and Lionheart’s name, as if we stand shoulder to shoulder in quiet, mutual agreement about the state of this galaxy and the decisions being made in your name.

We do not.

So let me begin with something very simple, the thing too many institutions are afraid to say out loud.

She is not telling you the truth.

Lionheart Industries is not, and has not been, in active talks with General Abigail Smith. We are not engaged in joint strategic planning. We are not co-signing her policies. We are not aligned in the quiet backrooms where she would like you to imagine we stand together. The last meaningful conversation she and I had was not about cooperation. It was about Xi Böötis, and about truth.

Some of you remember the broadcasts from that system. Some of you lost friends there. Some of you watched the casualty reports update in real time, refreshing a feed like you were pulling the handle of a slot machine rigged to pay only in grief. Xi Böötis is not just a footnote in a UNSC archive. It is a wound carved into the memory of this era. And if you have not seen those broadcast, seen the reports, which you have, talk to the most recently deployed Marines and ODST troopers and have them tell you a story of what they have survived … what they are surviving.

I met with General Smith after that. I sat across from her on Titan … Months … ago … in a secure chamber, and I asked her a question so simple that a child could understand it.

What happened?

Not the redacted version. Not the polished, committee-approved fiction that gets read into the Senate record. The truth. The real sequence of choices, failures, miscalculations, and sacrifices that led to what Xi Böötis became.

What she gave me was not truth. It was fragments. Evasion wrapped in protocol. Carefully phrased half-statements meant to imply accountability without ever truly accepting it. I have built my life on reading systems, economic systems, political systems, human systems, neural systems, and when someone is lying by omission, their words don’t need to break. Their patterns do.

General Smith’s pattern was clear: protect the uniform, not the people who bled in it.

The breaking point, for me, was not even her evasiveness. It was what happened next.

Some of you still remember the press conference where responsibility for Xi Böötis and its destruction was publicly addressed. It should have been a moment of unflinching honesty from the commanding officer whose name was on the orders. It should have been a moment where leadership meant stepping into the full weight of consequence.

Instead, it was Chancellor Adrianna Winters who stepped up to the podium.

Winters, civilian stateswoman, architect of the New Republic, a woman who had already spent her political capital building bridges in a world that delights in burning them, stood there and took the blame. She allowed the narrative to harden around the idea that it was her political miscalculation, her diplomatic misreading, her error.

And where was General Abigail Smith?

In the back of the room.

Watching.

Silent.

She let another woman, another leader, carry the fall so she could outlast the blast radius. No protest. No public correction. No insistence on owning her share. Just quiet survival. She watched a reputation shatter and treated it as a shield.

That moment told me everything I needed to know.

Understand this: Adrianna Winters is not perfect. I have disagreed with her more than once. But she stood in front of fire that was not solely hers because she believed the system she’d built was more important than her own image. She believed the galaxy needed a stable narrative more than it needed her vindication. So she broke herself to buy time and coherence for everyone else.

That is sacrifice.

What General Smith did was different.

When something is at risk of being taken away, power, image, position, she does not stand up. She ducks. She lets others burn in her place and calls it necessary. She sheds responsibility the way an animal sheds its skin when the old layer is damaged. Not out of wisdom. Out of reflex.

Survival at any cost is not leadership. It is instinct. It is what a cornered creature does when it feels the walls closing in.

And I will not allow Lionheart’s name, or mine, to be used as camouflage for that instinct.

We were not ‘in talks’ when she froze the Horizon Initiative.

We were not collaborating when she signed off on orders that strangled humanitarian aid under the excuse of operational security.

We were not united when she stood in the shadows and watched Winters take a bullet made of public opinion that should have passed through both their names.

So tonight, to every citizen who heard her say we are aligned, partnered, and synchronized, let me correct the record: Lionheart stands aligned with humanity, not with the fears of its generals.

That distinction matters.

And Xi Böötis is the proof.”

“Now, I want you to understand why I am saying this publicly, and why I am saying it now.

This is not a grudge. This is not some petty rivalry between a general and a corporate executive. I don’t have time for petty. I have empires to run and civilizations to build.

This is about legitimacy.

When a leader who has repeatedly chosen self-preservation over accountability stands in front of you and claims to speak in harmony with those who are actually rebuilding your worlds, that is not a miscommunication. That is an attempt to borrow trust she has not earned.

Lionheart does not exist to prop up the image of institutions that fail you. We exist to make sure you survive them.

Look at the pattern. Horizon Initiative: paused under the pretense of ‘security’, even as the data showed crime dropping, employment rising, homeless numbers drastically dropping, education level aggressively increasing, and public stability strengthening in every sector we touched. Relief corridors stalled. Rebuild plans smothered in committee. And now, a speech designed to make it sound as if this is all part of a grand, unified strategy between Lionheart and the UNSC.

It isn’t.

While Horizon was rebuilding the Bronx, Queens, Voi, while we were pouring resources into neighborhoods that had never once seen a senator step foot on their soil, where were the fleets? Where were the troop transports? Where were the reconstruction brigades? They arrived for the press conferences. They did not stay for the work.

When Voi’s lower tiers lit up for the first time in decades with clean energy, safe housing, and public food infrastructure, the people didn’t chant my name or hers. They chanted the name of the Initiative that gave them back a future.

Horizon.

That is what frightens her.

Not Lionheart’s weapons. Not our AIs. Not our influence in the markets.

What frightens her is that you have seen with your own eyes what it looks like when a power structure shows up without a gun in its hand. When we deploy medics instead of occupation troops. When we send teachers, builders, and social architects instead of armored columns. When we rebuild a borough or a district without demanding fealty to a flag. When we build cities to give families a chance at a future again.

You saw that. You lived in it. You remember who was there when the lights came back on.

Generals who build careers on the mythology of ‘we are your only shield’ cannot tolerate a competing narrative where someone else is the one who shows up with shelter, food, medicine, and stability. Especially not when that someone does it faster, cleaner, and without treating you like a liability.

So what do they do?

They pause. They stall. They regulate. They insist on ‘oversight.’ They speak of ‘jurisdictional integrity.’ They wrap obstruction in the language of order. And then, when the public starts asking questions, they step up to a podium and say, ‘Don’t worry, we’re all working together.’

No.

We are not.

Lionheart’s duty is to humanity, not to the comfort of the UNSC command structure. Our alignment is with the civilians who bleed when decisions are made poorly and lies are told smoothly.

That is why, when I tell you Horizon is paused, I’m not asking you to direct your anger into the void. I’m asking you to remember. Remember who tried to help you. Remember who stopped it. Remember who stepped in front of blame. Remember who stayed in the shadows.

Because this is the line I’m drawing tonight:

Lionheart will not be used as a prop in someone else’s performance of responsibility.

We will not allow our name to be wrapped around decisions we did not make, meetings we did not attend, strategies we did not endorse.

If the UNSC makes a choice, the UNSC must own it.

If I make a choice, I will own it.

That is the difference between leadership and survival instinct.

So when General Smith speaks of cooperation, understand this: Lionheart is always open to genuine collaboration when the goal is saving lives and rebuilding worlds. What we will never do is co-sign stagnation and call it strategy.

If she wants to stand beside me in truth, true truth, not just the sugar coated idea of what truth should be … she is welcome to. But I will not stand beside her in denial.”

“Now let’s talk about what happens next.

Because this isn’t just about one general, one speech, or one clash between two power structures. This is about the shape of your future, and who you allow to have a hand in building it.

For years now, Lionheart has walked into the places no one wanted to see. We went into boroughs written off as lost. We stepped onto moons that were considered economically ‘non-viable.’ We descended into underhabs no official had visited sober in decades. We didn’t arrive with ultimatums. We didn’t arrive with flags and an anthem demanding allegiance.

We arrived with power grids, medbays, schools, shelter, food, and work.

Did Lionheart become an empire in the process?

Yes.

We are not shy about that. We have grown into something vast, complex, and powerful. Our reactors light cities. Our stations anchor orbital trade. Our research rewrites physics. Our logistics keep half the galaxy from starving.

But here is the line we have never crossed:

We have never demanded subjugation in exchange for help.

We do not ask you to kneel. We do not demand oaths of eternal loyalty. We do not send in tanks with our aid convoys. We don’t tell your children what to believe or who to vote for as a condition of eating.

We extend a hand.

That is all.

You choose whether to take it.

The pattern we are seeing now from certain sectors of UNSC leadership is very simple: if they cannot control the hand that feeds you, they would rather cut it off than share the credit.

General Smith is not just trying to put constraints on a project. She is trying to slowly carve Lionheart out of your lives. To push us back into the role of weapons manufacturer, shipbuilder, convenient scapegoat, anything but the entity that stands in direct relationship with you.

Why?

Because when you know who actually helped you stand up, you know who you trust when the sky starts falling again.

If Lionheart is allowed to remain embedded in your day-to-day reality, as your power provider, your reconstruction partner, your education patron, your relief foundation, then when the next Xi Böötis happens, you will look to us first.

And that terrifies people whose entire power is built on the assumption that you have nowhere else to turn.

So they frame it as ‘security.’ They whisper that Lionheart’s influence is dangerous. That we are ‘too integrated.’ That we might one day use the infrastructure we built to turn on you instead of protect you.

Let me answer that directly.

If I ever wanted to rule you, I would not have built you homes you own. I would have built you barracks you rent.

If I ever wanted to enslave you, I would not have offered free education. I would have offered only training useful to my factories.

If I ever wanted to control you, I would not have placed medical technology in your neighborhoods. I would have kept it in citadels behind three layers of armed escorts.

Empire is easy.

Empowerment is hard.

Lionheart chose the hard path on purpose.

The Horizon Initiative is the purest expression of that choice. It says: find the places abandoned by power, and pour so much life into them that abandonment becomes impossible. Take the Bronx and make it shine. Take Queens and give it back its spine. Take Voi and remind Mars that its capital belongs to its people before it belongs to its military.

That is what they are trying to stop.

And here is where you come in.

Because I can build reactors. I can design AIs. I can fund relief convoys that crisscross the stars. But what I cannot do, what I will never do, is fabricate your consent.

That’s yours.

So to every citizen listening, on Earth, on Mars, on Titan, in the Outer Colonies, crouched over a battered terminal in a mining outpost or sitting in a high-rise suite in New Alexandria, hear me when I say this:

If you want Lionheart in your lives, you have to say so.

You have to speak, not just in anger, but in clarity.

Support the Horizon Initiative publicly. Talk about what it did for your district, your block, your family. When you vote, when you protest, when you write, when you speak to your local representatives, ask them one question: ‘Why are you trying to remove the one entity that actually showed up when we needed help?’

Support the Ark Initiative that has save millions of your fellow citizens lives that no one else came to help. That no one else could provide for. In those times when the issue and conflict was being passed around from leader to leader with out solution, it was Lionheart that looked to you and said “we are here.”

To our allies in the UEG Senate, in the colonies’ councils, in the independent media, in the fleets who’ve seen what our logistics can do when the ammo runs low and the food runs out, use your positions. You don’t have to endorse me. You don’t even have to like me. But you know what happens when humanitarian aid is throttled for politics.

You’ve seen it.

You’ve buried it.

Say so.

Make it clear, on the record, that pausing Horizon and other Initiatives weakens stability, not strengthens it. That cutting Lionheart out of civilian recovery doesn’t make the UNSC safer. It makes the galaxy more fragile.

And to those in the UNSC who are listening right now, the officers who still remember that the point of the uniform is to protect people, not reputations, I am not your enemy.

I have never been your enemy.

Every planetary defense net we build, every medical advancement we deploy, every logistics chain we optimize, every orbital platform we prototype, every soldier, sailor, marine, or trooper that we have saved … that we … are saving … those things keep your people alive. They give your fleets better odds. They shorten your casualty lists.

You know this.

You’ve fought with our work at your back.

I do not ask you to choose me over your command. I ask you to remember the difference between necessary caution and institutional fear.

Because when fear starts dictating humanitarian policy, you are not securing the galaxy. You are abandoning it.

Let me make one final point very clear.

I was born in a world where systems failed people like clockwork. I built Lionheart not to escape that reality, but to rewrite it. I am wealthy beyond measure, powerful beyond comfortable description, and yet my loyalty has never changed.

I am of the people.

I will always be of the people.

That is not branding. That is origin.

You can pull our permits. You can stall our projects. You can kneecap our initiatives and bury our proposals in a thousand review boards.

What you cannot do is convince the people who saw our relief convoys roll in that we were the problem.

They remember who came.

And I will keep coming.

With Horizon when they finally unclench their grip.

With Helping Hands while they haven’t.

With Ark when they wouldn’t.

With new initiatives we haven’t named yet, seeded in the cracks of the old order until one day, the map of who matters and who doesn’t is burned and redrawn.

General Smith may believe she can cut Lionheart out of your lives.

I believe otherwise.

Because I’ve seen what happens when a hungry child eats in a Horizon mess hall for the first time. When a mother walks into a clean, well-lit clinic that wasn’t there last month. When a mechanic in Voi steps into a classroom and learns quantum theory from a teacher funded by our scholarships. That look in their eyes, that shift from resignation to possibility, that is where my allegiance lies.

So here is my promise to you.

No matter how loudly anyone in uniform insists that their way is the only way… Lionheart will keep building paths they did not authorize, to futures they did not plan, for people they did not think would ever rise. I will continue to fight for you the people and if that means pushing back against those that wish to silence and annihilate me, then so be it. I will now bow, and I will not break not at the consequence of innocents lives, that is not who I am, and that is not who I ever will be.

And when history looks back on this moment, it will not remember who preserved their image.

It will remember who preserved their world.”